Ethereum’s eagerly anticipated Shanghai upgrade, which will enable the withdrawal of staked ETH, will likely occur in the first two weeks of April, the network’s core developers determined on a call Thursday. Though the upgrade had been firmly slated for a March release, some Ethereum developers began doubting that timeline would stick as early as January, as previously reported by…
On March 2, Xapo Bank announced its partnership with Lightspark, a company led by David Marcus, former crypto boss at Facebook. The partnership aims to extend the utility of bitcoin and the Lightning Network. Xapo revealed on Thursday that it is the first fully licensed private bank to offer payments through the Lightning Network. Xapo CEO Sees Lightning Network Integration…
United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) chair Gary Gensler spoke at a meeting of the commission’s Investor Advisory Committee on March 2 on the topic of asset custody. The committee has a proposed rule for investment advisers on safeguarding investor assets. It was the second statement Gensler has made on the proposed rule. The first was in mid-February when…
Crypto traders’ urge to create leverage positions with Bitcoin (BTC) appears irresistible to many people, but it’s impossible to know if these traders are extreme risk-takers or savvy market makers hedging their positions. The need to maintain hedges holds even if traders rely on leverage merely to reduce their counterparty exposure by maintaining a collateral deposit and the bulk of…
Three United States senators led by Elizabeth Warren have sent a letter to Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao (CZ) and Binance.US CEO Brian Shroder expressing concern over a number of facets of Binance’s activities and requesting information from the companies that includes their balance sheets. Crypto skeptic Warren’s cosigners were fellow Democrat Chris Van Hollen and Republican Roger Marshall. They claimed…
United Kingdom babanks HSBC Holdings and Nationwide Building Society are banning cryptocurrency purchases via credit cards for retail customers. They join a growing list of banks in the country to tighten restrictions on digital assets. A Bloomberg report on March 2 claims the step back is a response to warnings by UK regulators and scandals surrounding the crypto industry. Nationwide…
Two United States senators have penned a letter asking Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg to halt a plan to allow young adults to access the firm’s metaverse platform, Horizon Worlds. In a March 1 letter, Senators Edward Markey and Richard Blumenthal said that Meta’s reported plan to “invite young users into a digital space rife with potential harms” should not be…
Moscow Credit Bank has issued a blockchain-based bank guarantee denominated in Chinese currency, claiming the product is the first in the country. The bank guarantee exceeds 100 million Chinese yuan — or nearly $144,600 USD at time of publication. According to a statement, the transaction was performed through the Masterchain blockchain platform, andthe Russian national blockchain network created to transfer…
The United States Treasury Department is continuing to consider design decisions relating to the introduction of a central bank digital currency. Under Secretary for Domestic Finance Nellie Liang gave an audience at the Atlantic Council a rundown on March 1 of technical and policy issues the Treasury-led CBDC Working Group is looking at. Liang looked at both wholesale and retail…
On March 2, 2023, the cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase announced that, in light of recent developments, the company is “no longer accepting or initiating payments to or from Silvergate Bank.” The news follows the crypto bank’s delay of its annual 10-K filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and JPMorgan’s downgrade of the company’s shares from “neutral” to “underweight.”…
